A rhythmic beeping permeated the darkness. A warmth squeezed somewhere at something. Then, there was light.

An impulse twitched and flicked my soon to be recognized eyelids. In my periphery, a soft blue blur came into focus. It draped over an arm – my arm. My tremoring vision followed my left arm to the source of the squeezing. An older woman sat next to the bed, cradling my hand between two of her own. She leaned over me with her hair curled in a fog of salt and pepper waves. Facial muscles, my facial muscles, twitched. I tried to steady the lines of her face in my vision. A nauseous pit of visceral connection confirmed familiarity and possible medication withdrawal. I continued to draw nothing as I failed to name her through the haze.

Who are you?

“Uh,” I tried to speak, but something in my throat prevented me from calling out. I bit down into a plastic tube inside my dry mouth. My heart raced as I panicked, kicking my legs. My arms pulled against straps that secured them to the bed rails.

Her eyes widened as her face turned to me, a smile blooming. My heart pounded in my ears as quickening bleeps combined with the wailing alarm from elsewhere in the room into a cacophony. Exhausted, I closed my eyes against the chaos, sinking into visions of colored bright lights and forms in white and black. Short clopping sounds transformed into music. It intermingled like smoke from the burning sensation crawling up my right arm. Another wave of nausea against the spinning room – I pulled my eyelids back. The woman and floor tilted and swayed.

“Michael! You’re awake! After all this time! Oh, Michael,” The woman’s face dropped to my hand as she sobbed against my skin. My eyelids fell shut against their weight. The commotion of medical staff drowned out the music as they pulled the woman away, and I faded into a distance.

That name sounded familiar. Who’s Michael?